Editorials|1 March 1931

ALCOHOL AND POSTERITY

Abstract

A. Bluhm of Munich has contributed a noteworthy experimental study on the blastophthoric effect of alcohol, which confirms Stockard's experiments with alcohol in this country, as well as those of Weller as to the effect of lead poisoning on the progeny of successive generations. Bluhm concerned herself with the problem whether parental alcoholism produces changes in the posterity that are in a strict sense hereditary, or whether the blastophthoria produced by alcohol is only temporary, disappearing in the course of a number of generations. The experiments were carried out on white mice; 32,300 individuals were employed. Only the males of